Our Makers
Created by Hand in Fulton, Mo, Crafted by Hand in India
Beth the Handker Founder & Owner met our production partner on a trip to India almost five years ago. When she realized the owner shared her passion for saving people from shitty jobs, they became fast friends.
Over the years, we've grown with our production partner in India. We've collaborated on projects, shared business success, and even flown across the world to visit one another.
Each bandana is screen printed by hand and made with 100% cotton. And the designs come straight from Beth's home studio where she crafts each design with paint and paper.
Destination India
Before the summer of 2018, traveling to India had never been at the top of my list. I'm more of a Western Europe/National Parks kind of girl. But all my favorite books are travel memoirs (my favorites are listed at the bottom of this post) and I believe the secret to life and art is pushing beyond your comfort zone.
So when Missy, my business partner at June Clever, suggested we travel to India to visit her manufacturer and see our new designs in person, I saw it as an exciting opportunity. I knew that I'd need this kind of nudge to actually visit a country that was so unknown to me.
When I first walked into their screen-printing workshop, I was hit by a wave of euphoria. Here were the designs I drew on my couch back home, beautifully screen printed and ready to hold in my own two hands. Textiles are my MOST FAVORITE medium, and I've never gotten to experience the process on such a large scale before.
Missy and I had a blast, I learned a ton, and we met some incredible people. There's something to be said for traveling with someone braver and more extroverted than yourself. Missy makes everything--even Delhi belly--more fun. There were lots of laughs involving the "Indian toilet" situation, let's just leave it at that.
{Missy and I enjoying one of MANY cups of chai tea, and a typical toilet }
After that trip, I found myself reading everything I could about India and its culture. It's an enormous and complex country with ancient history. It seems impenetrable to a westerner like myself. But I'm forever curious and I’m hugely grateful I was able to experience a small bit of it.
{ Souvenir market at a hill station that we visited }
Now that I had been to India, a whole new world had opened up to me for products I could create. I now knew what I needed to launch Handker (which was originally named Hemlock Goods) in March 2019.
